Text of the provision

Art. 226. Removal, concealment or destruction of documents. - Any public officer who shall remove, destroy or conceal documents or papers officially entrusted to him, shall suffer: 1. The penalty of prisión mayor and a fine not exceeding Two hundred thousand pesos (₱200,000), whenever serious damage shall have been caused thereby to a third party or to the public interest. 2. The penalty of prisión correccional in its minimum and medium period and a fine not exceeding Two hundred thousand pesos (₱200,000), whenever the damage caused to a third party or to the public interest shall not have been serious. In either case, the additional penalty of temporary special disqualification in its maximum period to perpetual disqualification shall be imposed.

Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, Act No. 3815, as amended. Reproduced in full from the official enactment and verified against the LawPhil and ChanRobles renderings.

What this article means

A public officer who removes, destroys or conceals documents entrusted to him officially suffers prisión mayor and a fine not exceeding Two hundred thousand pesos (₱200,000) where serious damage results to a third party or the public interest, and prisión correccional in its minimum and medium period with the same fine ceiling where the damage is not serious. Either way he also gets temporary special disqualification in its maximum period to perpetual disqualification.

Questions about this provision

Related provisions

Penalty amounts. The text above is the article as amended by Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised the property values and fines throughout this Code. Older reproductions of the Revised Penal Code still print the 1930 amounts — for theft and estafa they show 12,000 and 22,000 pesos where the current figures run to millions. Check which version any source you rely on is giving you.

Cases interpreting this article

Note. The text of the provision above is reproduced in full from the official enactment (Act No. 3815), verified against the LawPhil and ChanRobles renderings. The Revised Penal Code has been amended many times; this page reproduces the text as those sources carry it. The annotation and commentary around it are the work of Vivas & Nobles Law Office and are general legal information, not legal advice. How a provision applies to a particular situation depends on facts that only a lawyer reviewing your case can assess.